As part of its plan to crack down on pesky short messaging service ( SMSs), the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India ( Trai) has said only 100 SMSs per day per SIM card would be allowed at concessional rates. Beyond this number, telecom service providers cannot charge less than 50 paise per local SMS, Trai principal adviser N. Parameswaran said at a press conference here on Monday. Currently, these SMSs cost as low as 1 or 2 paise.
The new Trai order has to be implemented within 15 days, Parameswaran said adding that these measures are initial steps and more will follow. Subscribers will be able to lodge complaints if bombarded with unsolicited SMSs or calls at the toll free number 1909 from November 6.
The Trai said that complaints will then get uploaded on the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Portal website ( http://www. nccptrai.gov. in)
Telecom operators have also been asked to put in place a technical solution within three months, which will ensure that no commercial SMSs are sent having the same or similar characters from any source number. Such a system will ensure that not more than 200 SMSs with such similar ‘ signature’, character or string are sent in an hour, he said.
However, registered telemarketers, transactional messagesending entities and telephone numbers exempted by Trai are excluded from this provision, Parameswaran added.
“ These are the first slew of measures to contain illegal, unregistered telemarketers.
Since the regulation on telemarketers came into effect in September last year, we issued notices to over 1.33 lakh unregistered telemarketers and have disconnected over 1 lakh such connections till October 22 last month,” he further added.
Telecom operators may discontinue some SMS packages and hike tariffs. But some operators like TTSL may not take such measures because they have high stakes in the SMS and telemarketing business.
Trai said that it has no mechanism to break the nexus between telecom companies and unregistered or registered telemarketers, who have a segment- wise data bank of subscribers.
“ We are in touch with top telecom company officials. They have assured us that they would put stringent measures in place in case such things are happening at the lower rung,” said Parameswaran.
But the damage has been already done with massive data of mobile subscribers along with their category and profile readily available with telemarketers.
Telecom companies are required to take an undertaking in the customer acquisition form that the connection will not be used for telemarketing purpose. In case, the connection is found to be used for telemarketing purposes, it could be disconnected, Parameswaran said.
In case of violation of regulations by registered telemarketers, Trai had recommended penalty ranging between ` 25,000 and ` 2.5 lakh.
Reproduced From Mail Today. Copyright 2012. MTNPL. All rights reserved. Mail Today Daily Features November 06, 2012 By Suhas Munshi in New Delhi Bug gets bulkier
IN CASE you are getting more pesky SMSs, it is due to the government’s crackdown on such service providers.
Sources say that such SMS service providers are anticipating measures like hike in SMS tariff along with several other steps that will make it difficult to send bulk text messages. In anticipation of such moves, clients are trying to book maximum orders this week.
There are three members in the bulk SMS industry: clients who book bulk SMS packages to advertise their brands, dealers who either have their own hardware or share profits with someone who does ( called ‘ pipes’) and data brokers who maintain databases of phone numbers and other details.
Finally, there are dealers in China who supply the required hardware, the USB modem, to their clients in India.
According to market sources, every member in this chain is expecting to take a big hit from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s impending crackdown. For example, the cost of booking an order of 1,00,000 SMSs through a bulk provider is between ` 7,000 and ` 8,000.
The price is expected to increase to around ` 10,000 per one lakh SMSs.
No comments:
Post a Comment